In storage and parcel lockers, such as used in mail box systems in apartment houses and central offices, and in other parcel distributing facilities, frequently packages are encountered which are much larger than the box facilities which are available. This is particularly true, for example, in post offices and in apartment systems where the storage accessible to the postal customers is hardly larger than the normal letter. Frequently, large packages are left out, often unattended. For example, in a lobby or in the hall of an apartment house. These exposed packages are subject to pilferage, damage and theft.
To avoid loss, pilferage and damage, some facilities place large packages, in the care of an attendant, in a larger central storage room. The central storage room is not available to the postal customers or to the public, unless the attendant is present. This is an inconvenient system, since it depends on the presence of the attendant for distribution and normally requires the cost of hiring an attendant. Larger packages can be received by customers only during the portion of the day when the attendant is on duty.
Other systems may also be used, but each has its own undesirable features. Each expected customer or user may have an individual locker. However, this system is expensive and wastes space. Normally only a small percentage of customers, tenants in an apartment house for example, receive large parcels on any given day. A few lockers may be used and made accessible to all customers at all times. This system is inexpensive, but is not secure.
Applicants have devised a unique system for parcel lockers that is inexpensive, does not require an attendant, is accessible and secure. Applicants have devised a double lock mechanism for use in the system. The system may be used in a compound storage system where customers normally have access to a small box, for example, a mail box. In such systems there are a large number of small boxes, assigned one to each apartment or each postal customer. These boxes are normally of a letter size and the customer has access to the assigned box by key.
The following patents disclose two key locking mechanisms which are known to applicant.
174,182 PA1 1,154,271 PA1 1,432,720 PA1 1,439,042 PA1 1,646,987 PA1 2,163,121 PA1 2,220,786 PA1 3,813,905
The disclosures of the above patents are incorporated by reference herein.